The use of an instant fingernail coating product whereby nail polish is applied to a fingernail by adhesively securing to it a dry form of nail polish has become a preferred mode of attaining a manicure by many users. Such dry nail polish products are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,903,840 and 5,415,903 each of which is incorporated by reference herein.
The nail coating product, or instant nail polish referenced above, confers numerous advantages over conventional, prior art nail polish applied with a brush in a liquid form. The application of instant nail polish is faster, easier and cleaner than conventional nail polish and does not suffer from the numerous encumbrances associated with wet nail polish such as drying time and the concern of smearing or smudging
As disclosed in the applications incorporated by reference herein, a single nail appliqué is substantially sized and shaped to match the surface of a fingernail. However, because nail size varies from person to person it is virtually impossible to design a single nail appliqué that will universally fit every fingernail. To address this problem, the instant inventor has provided multiple appliqués of varying size for each fingernail For instance, in a package of appliqués there will be two different appliqués for each finger—one of them being incrementally more slender than the other
The problem with the above approach is that two sizes per fingernail did not adequately cover a broad range of nail sizes. As a result, the above-referenced nail product was unavailable to consumers with wider or narrower than average fingernails. To address this problem, one solution would be to provide yet additional sizes of appliqués per finger. However, this would make appliqués more expensive, and would require larger packaging and would as such disadvantageously affect both consumers who would be required to pay more per package and retailers who would have to stock and display larger packages
A prior attempt to resolve this problem is disclosed in pending application Ser. No. 11/543,481. In that application, a nail appliqué is presented which has two ends—each of which is differently sized (see FIG. 17). As such, a single appliqué advantageously comprises two different sizes. In this manner, if two such sets of appliqués were included per package, there would be a total of four sizes per finger. Importantly, this doubling of potential nail sizes is achieved without a significant manufacturing expense and furthermore does not require larger sized packaging.
In the above-referenced two-sided appliqué, a handling tab is disposed midway between each end of the appliqué for selectively removing the appliqué from its backing. However, this arrangement suffers from numerous disadvantages. Firstly, the tab is difficult to grasp. Additionally, because the tab is directly connected to the functional portion of the nail coating, when stress is exerted on the tab in order to remove an appliqué the appliqué is often stretched, torn or otherwise deformed—thereby impairing its integrity and usefulness.